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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22441609">Heaven (Is a Place on Earth)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/soft_october/pseuds/soft_october'>soft_october</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Black Mirror Episode: s03e04 San Junipero, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst with a Happy Ending, Familiarity with the episode isn't necessary, First Kiss, First Meetings, First Time, Hospitals, Illnesses, Implied Sexual Content, It's a San junipero au what can I say, M/M, The mortifying ordeal of growing old, What if they were old and in love, spoilers for san junipero</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 12:01:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>17,133</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22441609</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/soft_october/pseuds/soft_october</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> “I’m just sneaking a break from the festivities, as it were.” Crowley twists his hand in a gesture meant to sum up the circumstances which led him here. “I haven’t taken up residency in the back of a bookshop in the middle of paradise.”<br/>“Ah, well, we clearly disagree over what, precisely, paradise might mean.” Aziraphale's eyes are sharp, and through that initial mask of annoyance, a small smile is curling. </i>
</p><p> </p><p>Crowley came to Lower Tadfield, the UKs version of San Junipero, to have a good time, try out the software, step out of his old and failing body into the magic of a virtual world with no consequences. At least that's what he had planned, until one night he stumbles into a bookshop and meets a buttoned up, blue eyed wonder with pale curls and a perfect smile.<br/></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>259</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>569</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>AJ’s personal faves, Good Omens Big Bang 2019, Good Omens Human AUs, Ixnael’s Recommendations, Our Own Side, Transcendence</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Act I</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for the Good Omens Big Bang 2020!</p><p>This contains major spoilers for the Black Mirror episode titled San Junipero. If you haven't seen it YOU REALLY SHOULD, but viewing it isn't necessary to follow along with that happens in this story. I'll tag each chapter with content warnings as necessary!</p><p>Heaps and heaps of thanks and praise to my artist <a href="http://khiroptera.tumblr.com">khiroptera</a> Her art is STUNNING. </p><p>Finally, thank you so much to my beta, <a href="http://fremulon.tumblr.com">fremulon</a> without whom my grammar would be A DISASTER</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p>
<p>He thinks it might be magic, the first time.</p>
<p>It’s the colours, he will decide later, when the weekly five hours of his trial are all used up and he’s lying in his too-narrow bed, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling and trying to replay the whole night from start to finish. The small hill he’s landed on is a deep emerald green, dotted here and there with white wildflowers bobbing lightly in the cool breeze. The city sits lower, near the coast, rising up against a turquoise sea and the sky - <em>sunset, magic hour, splendor of ended day</em> - is painted in oranges and pinks, an artist’s brush strokes against the coming dark. It’s how he remembers, how he used to see the world, and he’s frozen, afraid to move, afraid that if takes a single step everything will run together, water dumped over a painting, glitch, remind him it isn’t,  it’s not - </p>
<p>Tentatively, he raises a hand to his face, and when there is no shattering, no sudden static of lines or sounds, pushes the dark glasses back up on his nose. The colours are muted, calmed. He can take stock of the rest of it, hidden behind those lenses. </p>
<p>When he tests his movement, takes a few halting steps, he struggles to hide the crooked grin eager to bloom on his face. No creaks or pops, no strain in his knees, no ankle that does a weird little click no matter how he lands on it.</p>
<p> No pain. </p>
<p>On a whim he lengthens his stride (still smooth), ups his gait, is running down the small hill, his body as young and spry as it once had been, heedless of the others popping in among the hills, or the residents picnicking in the field at the bottom.</p>
<p>At least until he stops, chest heaving with effort, like it was all - like it was real - and he sees the stares, sees when they laugh behind their hands and turn away, his ears burning with their hurried condemnations. </p>
<p>“Look at that first timer.” </p>
<p>“Trial period if I’ve ever seen one.”</p>
<p>“You can always tell if they’ll stay, right from the start.” </p>
<p>He doesn’t run again. </p>
<p>He saunters instead - like old times on the stage, fans screaming in his face and ears ringing - to the nearest bar and gets incredibly drunk for the remaining four hours and fifty minutes he’s allowed of his evening. It’s 1997, the height of Britpop, and he stands on the sidelines as the rest of them dance, make eyes at pretty faces over the rims of wine glasses, whisper secrets to each other in dark corners, giggle at jokes that aren’t funny <em> in the least</em>, pretend to fall in love. He can see it all from behind the safety of the glasses he’s worn on the outside for the last decade. Observes the performance, the act. He should know, shouldn’t he? How to put on a face for the other faces you’ll meet? </p>
<p>But, thinking about it later, in his bed, underneath peeling ceiling paint, he concludes that it’s still the most fun he’s had in years. </p>
<p>He doesn’t want those who laughed at him to be right, but he realizes he will be back the next week, and the week after that, can imagine signing that slip of paper that will turn him into a resident without the least bit of hesitation when all gets to be too much, <em>the doctors, the pain, the shaking, the eyesight. </em></p>
<p>Technology-what a marvel, what a strange and wonderful piece of work is man, to have dreamed up such a place as this.</p>
<p>Crowley logs into Lower Tadfield the next week, but he doesn’t land on that hill. </p>
<p> He never chooses the same era twice. There’s too much variety for that, too many choices of what to wear, where to go, what to listen to, to pick the same place again and again. On occasion he seeks out company, sharing shots or pints over a scratched wooden table lit by glowing neon, but he doesn’t befriend anyone, doesn’t pursue these single-serving relationships, though there’s never a shortage of offers. Only once, someone pulls him into a drunken snog in a hallway outside a bathroom that he doesn’t expect and isn’t very nice, at that, and no amount of half-hearted apologies from the offender can possibly wash away the feeling of their fingers on his neck. </p>
<p>He ends each and every midnight in a back booth of some bar or nightclub, and never in the bed of another, or wrapped around a warm body in his own. There will be time enough for that eventually, he thinks, that night after someone tried and mostly succeeded in kissing him. He’s drinking to try and get rid of the feeling of another’s lips on his, the pull of unwanted hands on his shoulders. There will be time, there will be time, the fragments of an old poem slipping across his mind, ice over glass. </p>
<p>A few times (less than ten but more than five, he thinks, but he isn’t quite sure, - it all blends together, doesn’t it?) - he is recognized, asked to pose for a picture, but this happens most often when he is in his signature black trousers and blazer, with the sunglasses to match. </p>
<p>He tries to be polite when they ask, although his skin feels like it’s stretched too tight over his cheekbones when he smiles. </p>
<p>He starts to avoid all the later decades, because the further he goes back, the less he is noticed, as all the rest of them are caught up in their fantasies of being ad agents from the 50s or post-war movie stars, hair done up in victory rolls, gloves, starched shirts. He even dances one night in 1925, his red hair long and pinned up in curls, his black gown clinging luxuriously against the planes of his body (<em>like the waves rolling up on the shore outside</em>) as he moves with a stranger before jazz band background. Crowley considers, for an instant, he might bring this one back to that ridiculous little flat he chose as his home location when he first came to Lower Tadfield, the one with hardly any furniture except a chair and a bed and a room full of plants which will bloom perfectly no matter what he says to them, considers what it would feel like to have skin grasping at skin in this reality. </p>
<p>Then his time is up and he’s thrown back into his own body like a door slamming shut. </p>
<p>The shine wears off. </p>
<p>But not the way Crowley expects, like a cheap knockoff, when you notice a little flaking here and there until it goes on too long and then one day you’re left with a hideous unusable mess. No, this shine wears off like a car crash, all at once and in a spectacularly painful fashion. </p>
<p>Specifically, it wears off one night when he’s off for an evening in 2006, in a filthy fuck club called Hell’s Gate where everyone is living out those kinky fantasies they never could have copped to on the outside. The tired desperation is stretched like the skin of a new drum over the thin air. His lungs aren’t even functioning, but he’s still wrecked by the compression, like he can’t breathe, like the sadness and want of those around him is filling him up, drawing out his own need and melancholy like blood draws, like long needles pressed deep into his skin. </p>
<p>The crush is too tight, and he tells himself to give into it, to have fun. He wanted to come here tonight to get that part over with already, finally understand what the rest are all going on about in the day room or out on the grounds. This is supposed to be for fun, he’s having <em> fun</em>, one last flashy hurrah before his body finally gives out, but, try as he might, his smile is carved into his face by artificiality. Worse than any of his antics on any stage (<em>the night his bandmates quit the night he discovered what the label was doing the night he found out he was sick the first time but the show must go on, the show must go on said Freddie and if he could do it Crowley could</em>) is this pretending everything is fine, everyone here is fine, the lies he tells his therapist are true (oh yes I understand I’m acclimating quite well I’ve accepted it all) and he knows that if he stays here a moment longer, he’ll make a spectacle of himself by tearing through his chest to make his own artificial heart stop beating. </p>
<p>Then he hears it. </p>
<p>His first hit single. </p>
<p>His own song, playing through the paper-thin speakers, and instantly his mind is filled with images of the man who starred in the music video, remembers learning what happened to him a few decades later, <em> he didn’t know he didn’t know (did he know?) </em> and he’s gone before he one more pulsing vibration thrums through his head. </p>
<p>He’s on the cobblestone street of a little traversed thoroughfare in their own Lower Tadfield, the Brit name for their own San Junipero. (’San Junipero is such a colourful name,’ the man on the TV had said, when the import went live in the UK, pronouncing <em> colourful </em> like the name of some spicy food he likewise would take issue with. Crowley had sniffed and rolled his eyes and turned it off.) This street is perfect for what it is, though he supposes everything in Lower Tadfield is designed to be so. It’s quiet, with not even the distant bass of the nearby clubs trickling through the cloud to indicate there might be livelier times being had by livelier people that those who favored this section were not invited to. Had too much of that in life, he supposed. Yes, here he can have a moment. </p>
<p>Cafe’s and small, intimate bars line the avenue: the warm glow of their interiors spills out onto the roughhewn stones of the street, sliding along gentle strains of music that pour out of tinny pianos and acoustic guitars. A little theater up the street advertises tonight’s production of <em> Much Ado About Nothing</em>, and the venue across the way promises to wow its audience with some fancy West End show that was popular in ‘04 (unless it was ‘05, he always had trouble keeping track). He considers it for a moment, slipping into the crowd unseen, watching the - he checks the time - third act of the play. But the idea of pressing close in a darkened room yet again is too much for his paper-thin nerves, and he wonders if he should just end the evening right here and now, slam back into his body with all the grace of a drunk dunked into a cold shower, rip the oculus off his head and grind the thing under his heel, never set foot in Lower Tadfield again. </p>
<p>But then his eyes fall upon a different kind of place altogether, the kind of establishment that no one in their right mind would ever deign to patronize when they had the rest of paradise - bars, clubs, cafes, theaters, the rolling hills, the beach - right there at their fingertips.</p>
<p> It’s a small corner bookshop, and his feet are already bringing him to the doorstep before he’s even had a chance to make up his mind.  </p>
<p>The bell above the door jingles as he enters, though the tune is less merry than predicted, less welcoming, and the harsh sound echoes into the stacks. The books themselves seem affronted at the intrusion, and for an instant Crowley gets the creeping sense that he shouldn’t be here, that even this place is wrong, somehow, until the bell fades away and leaves only quiet in its wake. The silence soothes the tumult in his mind (<em>ah </em> , he imagines it saying, <em> been through the wringer this evening, haven’t you? Well, come on in, and I’ll put the kettle on</em>) and he takes deep breaths, hoping to wash away the memories and the guilt, the notes of that song of his still scraping lines across his brain. He doesn’t know how long he stands there, suspended, an insect in amber, until - </p>
<p>“If you’re just going to stand there, would you mind at least closing the door?” </p>
<p>Crowley is so surprised that anyone else would be here he hardly registers the sounds as words for a moment, doesn’t know where they’re coming from. Should he cross the threshold? <em> Do I dare and do I dare? Time to turn back and descend the stair?  </em></p>
<p>“Did you freeze up?” The voice again. </p>
<p>
  <em> Do I dare disturb the universe?  </em>
</p>
<p>Crowley steps across the threshold, and the door closes behind him. </p>
<p>“Are you still there?” </p>
<p>Instead of replying, he follows the sound of the voice, boots clicking unevenly against the wooden floor covered in dreadful carpets. The stacks are high, with a few ladders strewn about for effect, the perfect retreat for bookworm residents or visitors who could never have possessed such magnificence on the outside. He wonders what it smells like, to the residents, if it’s like dust and old paper, if that is part of the appeal. He supposes it won’t be too long at all until he knows, if he should ever return here once he’s passed on. </p>
<p>There’s a small room at the back of the shop, with a beautiful rolltop writing desk, a hideously patterned sofa and, upon a timeworn armchair, a man glaring at him as if Crowley led a riotous mob through the hallowed halls of this place personally, and not merely stepped inside. A cup of cocoa sits at his elbow, a pile of books on the table beside him. </p>
<p>“Is this how you spend your evenings?” Crowley asks, one eyebrow raised, and surprise floods those blue eyes. </p>
<p>“Not every evening.” The reply is sharp, defensive. “Just the one.” A trial case, then, just like Crowley.</p>
<p>“I suppose there’s not enough action for you out there?” He nods his head in the direction of the rest of the city, where residents and tourists alike are making poor choices totally free of consequences, sliding against each other - </p>
<p>“It would be rather rude of me to observe that I am not the only one here, I suppose?” </p>
<p>Crowley leans against the arm of the sofa, indicating his outfit, which is obviously done up for going out, not sitting about of an evening like anyone could do on the outside. </p>
<p>“I’m just sneaking a break from the festivities, as it were.” He twists his hand in a gesture meant to sum up the circumstances which led him here. “I haven’t taken up residency in the back of a bookshop in the middle of paradise.”</p>
<p>“Ah, well, we clearly disagree over what, precisely, paradise might mean.” The eyes are sharp, and through the mask of annoyance, a small smile is curling. </p>
<p>“Crowley,” he says, slipping over the arm of the sofa, his back resting against the plush cushions, letting his legs dangle over the side. </p>
<p>“Pardon?” </p>
<p>“My name. Crowley.”</p>
<p>“Aziraphale.”</p>
<p>“Bless you.” </p>
<p>“Very clever.” It’s clipped, but there’s no bite in the admonishment. “Never heard that one before. You must be quite the character.” Crowley tries to appraise without leering, and behind his glasses he sees the short blonde curls, the outfit that looks like Aziraphale hacked into the wardrobe from the 1875 sim, and, again, those piercing blue eyes. </p>
<p>“I get around,” Crowley mumbles, before manifesting a bottle of bordeaux and two glasses. He pours the first and hands it over. Aziraphale hesitates, eyeing the wine as if it's <em> heroin </em>that Crowley is offering, instead of a truly excellent vintage (which will only taste like a hint of fermented grapes instead of a true 1948 Chateau Latour). Aziraphale lingers long enough for Crowley to be on the verge of taking it back, fumbling his way clear out of the shop, out of the warm blanket of Aziraphale’s ridiculous presence and back out into the darkness of the road. </p>
<p>“I suppose one couldn’t hurt,” Aziraphale says, taking the offered glass. Their fingers slip against each other, and the warmth Crowley longs to feel is muted, a hot coffee through too many layers of insulation, but Aziraphale almost jumps at the contact, and a drop of wine sloshes over the side of the glass and plunges straight onto the page of his open book. </p>
<p>“Oh, dear, the book!” </p>
<p>The first words that try to claw their way out of Crowley’s throat -<em> It doesn’t matter, it’s all just ones and zeros, you can just wish up another perfect one </em> - die on his lips. The distress in Aziraphale’s voice is real enough. With a wave of Crowley’s hand, the book is clean again, and the delight on Aziraphale’s face makes Crowley want to dump the whole bottle over the pile on the table so he can clean them all up again, just to make sure that the stutter in his heart at that smile was real, that it wasn’t - that this isn’t part of the game, the dream. </p>
<p>“No harm done,” he says, shrugging off that smile Aziraphale deigns to bestow upon him, withdrawing his hand, hurrying on before the gratitude waiting on Aziraphale’s face has time to articulate - “Enjoying yourself here?” <em> Yes, excellent. Small talk. Very cool.  </em></p>
<p>“Quite a great deal, if you must know.” The prim and proper is still there, but there’s a softer edge to it, playing a part, instead of affronted. “I don’t get much chance to do any of this, outside.” </p>
<p>“No chance to read?” Crowley asks, incredulous, before he can stop himself, curiosity tamping down any common sense or manners. People don’t come to Lower Tadfield to talk about the outside, they’re just here to have fun or fuck or forget (the three F’s, the woman on the TV had said yesterday) - but there’s no stiffness when Aziraphale responds in the negative.</p>
<p>“None at all, I’m afraid.” There’s just a sad smile, and Crowley is mortified that he put it there. “What about you? All this -” he sweeps his glass up and down, indicating Crowley’s appearance. “I don’t suppose you wear this to just any old bookshop.” Crowley supposes that one honest answer deserves another. </p>
<p>“Let’s just say that my night didn’t quite go as planned.” Aziraphale watches him as he says it, and Crowley feels himself blushing under the gaze, like he’s fifteen again, like it’s his first - </p>
<p>“Do you want to talk about it?” He does, and he knows, without knowing anything else about Aziraphale, that he will be met with kindness and sympathy and encouraging smiles. </p>
<p>“Not really.” </p>
<p>“That’s alright.” A beat of silence, the sound of a glass softly placed down on a wooden table. </p>
<p>“I used to play music.” He blurts it out into the empty air, doubt clinging to him, static from a bad connection. “Like, in a band. Professionally. I had a break with my label and - well, it all got a little… unpleasant.” It’s as close to the truth as he’s admitted in a while, more than he’s ever told the therapist without a horde of pushy questions. </p>
<p>“I’m terribly sorry,” Aziraphale says. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of you.” Crowley grins. </p>
<p>“Yeah, I gathered.” </p>
<p>“Were you… ah, were you popular?” </p>
<p>“I got a play on the radio here and there,” Crowley answers, as he remembers concert halls full of screaming fans.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>“And then - and then - after I’ve been almost electrocuted by their shoddy setup, they have the gall to ask if I want to come back again on the next tour - I mean, I could have been killed!” He holds up his hand to show - but the scar isn't there, of course, no lightning trace of his veins highlighted in brown and red, fading now, on paper-thin skin, that’s not something that would have come through. But that’s not right, is it? The scar is him, it belongs to him, it's a memory etched into his skin - and with a small adjustment it’s there now, the way it looked a year and a half later, after three surgeries and a lawsuit. Aziraphale pats his shoulder in sympathy. There are three more bottles on the small table now, and Aziraphale’s books have been abandoned on the chair.  </p>
<p>“That does sound rather dreadful indeed,” Aziraphale admits. </p>
<p>“It was ridiculous, is what it was.” Crowley points towards the ceiling with his wine glass. “Worst venue I ever played.” </p>
<p>They’re together on the couch - when did that happen? - and Crowley’s head is resting against the softness of Aziraphale’s thighs. Perfection, that. Everyone else crafts these perfect avatars, the images of who they wanted to be, or wished they could be back then, or longed to be on the outside, but Crowley has no doubt at all that were he to see a picture of the real Aziraphale at the age he’s presenting here in Lower Tadfield, he would be just as soft as he is right now. He looks up at Aziraphale, to say something to that effect, something much more suave than what he is thinking, but the breath all goes out of him when he sees how the light behind his head illuminates the blonde curls. Aziraphale looks like a Biblical figure in some Renaissance painting, Saint George slaying the dragon, an angel, and where Crowley had been comfortably warm a second ago, now he feels hot all over. But he’s not about to move, not for all the world, he just has to think of something else to say, something - </p>
<p>“Anyway, I know I’m very dashing and fascinating and I do <em>so</em> enjoy talking about myself, but you’ve barely said anything in a bit, and this is me trying to be slightly less rude.” Aziraphale chuckles, the vibrations through his frame sending all kinds of lovely signals through Crowley’s own. </p>
<p>“I was never - well, I suppose you could say I was a bit of a performer as well?” Crowley is surprised, and his brain is keeping a running tally of the possibilities: motivational speaker, poet, writer. “I can certainly appreciate the strain of a… difficult audience.” Aziraphale’s eyes flash upward, just for a second, but in that instant Crowley knows, knows exactly which manner of collar Aziraphale wore or wears, or however it works, in his own body, not this virtual shell.  He imagines Aziraphale in purple robes, on an altar surrounded by stained glass and crosses, and is loath to hear him say it aloud, knows it will ruin the magic of the evening as sure as a bucket of ice water dumped over the both of them.</p>
<p> Aziraphale is looking down at him, blue eyes trickling through honeyed brown. He wonders what he sees, wonders why his face should be so soft as he examines the sharpness of Crowley’s, the dark shock of his hair. Crowley knows that if he doesn’t do it now he won’t have the guts to ever again, and he wants, <em> actually wants </em> something, so he reaches up and gently runs his fingers through the halo of curls, cups the back of Aziraphale’s head. The audible gasp from the other man sends shivers through Crowley’s toes in a way he hasn’t felt in all the time he’s been in Lower Tadfield, not in <em> years </em> in his own body. He hauls himself up, pulls Aziraphale down, their faces so close he would feel breath on his lips on the outside, or if they were residents here together, and what gave a thought like that permission to sidle up and make itself at home? Aziraphale’s eyes have gone wide, but he hasn’t pulled away, and while while every base desire within Crowley is telling him to surge forward, close the space between them, he can’t - not when Aziraphale is looking at Crowley like - like - </p>
<p>“Tell me to stop, and I will,” he whispers.  Aziraphale flicks his gaze up and down, parts his lips, closes them again, and Crowley is about to pull away, make a joke, cover it all up - <em> it’s fine it’s all fine the evening was better than any other he’s ever had here </em> - when Aziraphale wraps his arms around Crowley’s slender frame and smashes their lips together with more enthusiasm than skill. The unpracticed earnestness of it gives Crowley that flutter again, the ache in his chest that he hasn’t known in decades, and he’d like to give just a bit more thought to what that means, but Aziraphale is twisting his fingers into Crowley’s hair, and he’s moaning into Aziraphale’s mouth, and it’s so much, and he finds it very difficult to have thoughts of any higher order than <em> more</em> and<em> please</em>. </p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>The clock comes into focus. 11:55. Five more minutes. </p>
<p>He thinks about being in school,<em> no, I don’t want to get up, five more minutes</em>, but that dingy little bed of his past bears no comparison to this, this magnificent thing with black silk sheets, and he’s curled around Aziraphale, pressing soft kisses to the back of his neck, feasting on the little gasps and noises he makes each time Crowley's tongue grazes the sensitive skin. Aziraphale twists himself around so they’re facing, takes Crowley’s hand again and laces their fingers together between them, and looks down, suddenly shy again. </p>
<p>“I’ve… it's been a very long...” he flails. “I hope it was good.” </p>
<p>If Crowley wasn’t gone before, he knows he is now, he’s been flung right off a cliff by a pair of blue eyes and an unpracticed smile and there’s no going back, no roots to cling to, no fortuitous outcrop he can grab, just the cold cold water and the rocks beneath. </p>
<p>“You were beautiful,” he says instead, and kisses Aziraphale again. Aziraphale traces the line of his face with the soft pads of his fingers, looking at first pleased and then so <em>sad</em>, of all things. Crowley won’t stand for that, and stills the wanderings of his hand with his own, rests their foreheads together. </p>
<p>“I’ll see you next week, then,” he whispers. Aziraphale does not respond, just brushes his thumb against Crowley’s knuckles, and stares into his eyes until the alarm rips the image away.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Act II</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>One week later, Crowley fumbles the oculus when he tries to put it on. It’s his hands, he knows, (he can’t help their shaking, not anymore) but it could be nerves too, right? The kind that come from inside your head, not the kind that are failing his body. There might finally be a <em> good </em> reason, this time, he thinks, as his assistant (caretaker) softly plucks it off the floor and presses it into his hand. </p><p>“Everything alright today?” Adam asks, and Crowley is, of <em> course </em> he is, never better, in fact, but how is he supposed to explain he’s giddy as a schoolgirl before the big dance? </p><p>“I’m old,” he says, instead. “Am I supposed to be fine? Isn’t shaking part of the whole ‘advancing procedures of life’ you’re always on about?” </p><p>Adam shrugs. “Sure, but you seem to be doing more of it than you usually are. Would you like me to schedule some more exercises into your schedule?” It’s so earnest, so full of help and hope. Crowley wonders how much longer Adam wants him to hold on, how much longer he expects Crowley to deal with his eyes, and the shaking, and - </p><p>“Whatever you like,” Crowley says. Anything to get out of this conversation and get into Lower Tadfield. Adam flicks his eyes to the corner of the room, to the guitar that’s been hanging on the wall since Crowley moved in, collecting dust, (probably woefully out of tune). </p><p>“I think you should try playing music again,” Adam says, carefully. “What do you think about that?” Adam knows exactly what Crowley thinks about that. Adam’s not the one who’s pushing past his expiration date, Adam’s not the one who has trouble remembering what happened yesterday, or the week before, or the names of the ever-changing carousel of doctors who harangue him day in and day out. </p><p>“No,” Crowley says flatly, the same way he’s said no every single time Adam gently pushed the issue.</p><p>“Alright,” Adam says with a shrug. “Off you go then.” </p><p>Crowley goes. </p>
<hr/><p>He spends hardly any time getting ready. Aziraphale already knows what he looks like, and he doesn’t want to waste a single moment. Black on black will do as nicely tonight as it did for the last fifty years. He stumbles into Lower Tadfield, picks up some sweets  he thinks Aziraphale will like from a shop, a bottle of wine, a bouquet of roses. The pull towards the bookshop is almost a physical sensation, and he wonders if something changed in the programming, if the night they spent together is in his code now, buried deep like DNA, if every night they spend together hereafter will continue to seep into the binary that makes up whatever he is here, until one day he will enter Lower Tadfield and not know where he ends and where - </p><p>Aziraphale isn’t there. </p><p>Well, no matter. Crowley can practice patience, if he tries. He can wait. He sits down, crosses his legs, uncrosses them, examines the perfection of his nails and bites them ragged and torn, the way they were, the way they’re <em> supposed </em> to be. </p><p>He can wait a total of five minutes before he begins pacing back and forth through the bookshop, ten before he starts looking out the window. </p><p>After an hour, he goes looking. </p><p>And although he searches the bars, the cafes, the theaters, <em> Christ, </em> he goes into one of the nightclubs before the pulsing drive of the bass sends him back out onto the street. </p><p>Aziraphale isn’t anywhere. </p><p>Crowley tries to keep the tamp of panic down. They <em> agreed</em>, didn’t they? They <em> said </em> they would meet again next week! Maybe just… maybe Crowley got the time wrong.</p><p>He doesn’t think about the other reason Aziraphale might not be here, the other reason so many disappear from one week to the next, the reason for his own cavalcade of doctors and nurses and attendants. He got the time wrong. He can try again, he’ll look somewhere else, he’ll - </p><p>The five hours are up. </p><p>Crowley tries 1985 next, and finds big hair and glam and no Aziraphale. </p><p>1967 brings the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, a certain smell in the air absent from the other decades. But Aziraphale isn’t here either. </p><p>He <em> was </em> wearing that ridiculous getup. Maybe Aziraphale is one of those who likes to play in the earlier sims, the ones set up for people who have watched too many period dramas and want to play at being Elizabeth Bennet or Margaret Hale? He can try then. </p><p>But the next two weeks bring him 1862 and 1800. There are a lot of very fancy outfits and a lot of practiced mannerisms that seem more like abysmal playacting. </p><p>There is no Aziraphale. </p><p>“You aren’t sleeping well,” Adam says, one Friday morning. “Did something happen?” He nods at the oculus sitting on the nightstand. “You don’t have to keep going, if it’s not helping.” Crowley feels trapped by those eyes, <em> pinned and wriggling on the wall</em>, by eyes that see too much, are trained to track the infinitesimal shades of feeling flitting  across Crowley’s face.</p><p>“No!” Crowley says, too quickly. “No, nothing happened. It’s just… Nothing.” Adam watches him for another few moments, and then shakes his head. What is he supposed to tell the kid? That he’s haunted by the memory of someone he met inside a computer program? That he can’t sleep because fragments of that fucking poem keep sliding across his brain? <em> That’s not it at all, that isn’t what I meant at all -  </em></p><p>“Whatever you like.” Adam replies in that easy, breezy manner of his, the one that says <em> I know you aren’t telling me everything. I won’t press. I can tell you’re lying. </em> Crowley is guilty as all hell over it, and he’s furious for that too. “Why don’t we get you some breakfast, instead?” His remorse turns to rage in an instant, and <em> that </em> he is used to, <em> that </em> he can feed off of. </p><p>“<em>Jesus</em>Adam, I’m not that far gone,” he spits. “I’m not a… a toddler instantly improved by the distraction of a meal.” </p><p>“I know that,” Adam says, evenly. “But you just took your pills, and you’re going to bitch and moan about your stomach in about a half hour if you don’t eat.” </p><p>Crowley hates being old. </p>
<hr/><p>He goes back to Lower Tadfield that night with a very simple set of rules. He will go to the nearest club, he will drag his tolerance slider as low as it goes and get absolutely pissed of a single glass of whiskey and spend the next five hours in a stupid, mixed up haze of music and blurred smiles and slurred speech. </p><p> Crowley will not look for Aziraphale today.</p><p> What’s the point? Either he doesn’t want to be found or… He doesn’t want to be found. That’s all. What happened between them didn’t mean anything to Aziraphale, not the way it - nevermind. Just nevermind. </p><p>
  <em> That isn’t what I meant at all  </em>
</p><p> Crowley barely pays attention to the time selection, selects whatever the default is. 2019. And why not? The music was nice, the fashion was okay, and he can forget completely about blue eyes and blonde curls and shy smiles. It’s going to be <em> fun. </em> </p><p>This is fun. </p>
<hr/><p>It takes Crowley (who had considered himself a veritable master of self-deception) a remarkably brief period of time to admit to himself that this is <em> not </em> fun. </p><p>Before he's passed thirty minutes in the crowded bar he's twitching with the need to <em> get out. </em> The music beats like war drums between his ears, the voices around him squawk at each other like chickens at their feed, and his poor artificial heart tap dances every time he catches a glimpse of a blond head of hair. Never the <em> right </em> head of hair, of course. (He's tired of pretending like he isn't watching the door.)</p><p>So he leaves. He goes left, because why not, it doesn't matter, nothing is supposed to matter, not here, but the throbbing wound of bass and high pitched giggles fades behind him, and he can breathe again, at least. The road leads him to a sort of park, enclosed by a low brick wall, brightly lit by charming little lamps. </p><p>A smile tugs at the corner of his lips at the sight: some nostalgia buried somewhere in his memories, perhaps, calling him onward, and he passes through the wrought iron gate at the entrance. </p><p>Of course, in the manner of everything anyone ever lost and then found again, Aziraphale shows up the moment Crowley stops looking for him.</p><p>Crowley sees those curls first, like he knew he would, in 1867 and 1800 and 1969 and all the other times as he frantically scanned the crowds at theaters and looked through bookshop windows, his breath catching every time he thought - but no. </p><p>And here Aziraphale is. Sitting alone, on a bench in the park, watching the ducks out on the lake, as if he’s waiting for something (<em>someone, please let him be waiting for someone</em>). He’s not gone for good, he hasn’t - hasn’t passed on outside of Lower Tadfield like Crowley feared. And there must be a stutter, or a lag in the connection, or something technical, because that’s the only way to explain the manner in which the whole world seems to tunnel, create a focal point for the moment Aziraphale turns his head to the side and Crowley can mark that unmistakable visage, although the smile he remembered has pulled a bit at the edges, transformed from shy to sad. </p><p>Crowley is frozen to the spot, and yet he must make some small noise - a gasp, or a sharp breath through his nose (<em>he must, because there’s no way Aziraphale senses that connection the same way Crowley does, no way he can perceive Crowley standing behind him, else why would he have fled in the first place</em>) because Aziraphale looks up. His eyes go bright - happy, even, if Crowley wants to flatter himself - before that expression closes over, like a shade slamming down over a warmly lit window in the heart of a dark and cold night. </p><p>"Hello," Crowley manages, before Aziraphale logs off or blinks out of existence or God knows what else. "Been here all this time, then? Waiting for something, are you?" </p><p>"H-hello," Aziraphale fumbles, looking away. Crowley certainly does not see the blush creeping up his neck, does not hope that it might be caused by something other than embarrassment. "I didn't - didn't expect-" </p><p>"No, I suppose you didn't,” says Crowley, hope and joy fleeing faster every time Aziraphale averts his eyes, with every broken-off contraction. And Crowley should turn around, wave, not let himself be - “I went looking for you, you know," he admits instead.  </p><p>"Ah.” Aziraphale’s hand twitches on the back of the bench. </p><p>"I was worried something might have - But nevermind.” <em> Nevermind, nevermind, isn’t that the word of the day? </em> “It doesn't matter then, does it?" It’s Crowley’s turn to look away from those blue eyes. At least he’s seen him, at least he can start the work of letting go. What’s one more failed - what can he even call this? A relationship? Of course not, it was one night. A love affair? Bah. What does that second word even mean?</p><p>"Why?" Aziraphale’s voice cuts through his thoughts easily, severing the spiral before it can really begin. </p><p>"Why what?" </p><p>"Why did you go looking for me… when you couldn't - when I didn't -" </p><p>How <em> dense</em>, how <em> unbelievably abstruse </em> can this man <em> possibly be</em>?</p><p>"Why do you <em> think</em>?" he sputters, the frustration and uncertainty of the last month and a half bursting out of him like a flash of magnesium fire. </p><p>“This doesn’t…” Aziraphale rises from the bench, stands with his hands raised in question, his face unreadable. “This didn’t <em> mean </em> anything to you.” It’s high and strained. It’s almost a question. “It was… it was just nothing.” He says it without conviction, with the attitude of a man attempting to convince himself he prefers black coffee when all he wants is a cup of hot chocolate covered in whipped cream and sprinkles. </p><p>Of course it was <em> something</em>, Crowley wants to scream. Don’t you feel it in the 0s and 1s? You must! <em> Please, please feel it too</em>. How could you not? Did we not move together in my bed as one, did I not scour the servers looking for you, how could you say such a thing? </p><p>The younger man in him, the one he looks like here, in this simulation where he can be anyone or anything he chooses, wants to roll his eyes, to scoff, to watch Aziraphale’s face crumble in anguish, wants him to hurt like Crowley has been hurting, wants to bite off his own nose and take his spited face away to mourn and lick his wounds in peace and solitude. But he’s lost so much, <em> so much </em>, and some of it was his fault and some of it wasn’t, but at the end of everything, he isn’t surprised to find that pride is the first to shrivel away. </p><p>“To me,” Crowley whispers, so slowly, the words dragging out of him, the bass under a slow dirge. “It wasn’t nothing. To me.” </p><p>Aziraphale flicks his eyes back and forth, and Crowley wonders if he is looking for a lie hiding somewhere in the miserable ruin of Crowley’s face,  if Aziraphale is waiting for a slow, sarcastic curl of lip, the furious blink that belies insincerity, an involuntary twitch of muscle there, near the eyes. Crowley is all too familiar with the game, has made more than a few searches of his own that always bore fruit. But Crowley’s face is barren. There is nothing in it but raw truth, and Crowley wants to bury his face in his hands and hide away. </p><p>The seconds drag on and on, until, finally, Aziraphale exhales. He walks around to stand beside Crowley, and if they were on the outside they would be sharing the same breath.  </p><p>“I didn’t want this,” he says, passing a hand over his forehead, and the words hit Crowley like a gunshot. </p><p>“Then - then -” </p><p>“No,” Aziraphale continues, trapping Crowley in the circle of his arms, where he trembles like a bird. “I didn’t <em> expect </em> to feel this way. And now that I do...” </p><p>“How do you feel?”</p><p>“Warm,” Aziraphale mumbles. “Safe.” </p><p>"Truly a terrible fate." Crowley drawls. </p><p>"No, you don't understand!” Aziraphale exclaims. “This was just - this was supposed to be passing time until… You know, what all the advertisements say. ‘One last hurrah before the big one.’" </p><p>"One last chance to sit on a park bench?"</p><p>"Something like that." Aziraphale takes his arms away, and starts curling in on himself, changing before Crowley’s eyes, shrinking, becoming less. Well. Not if Crowley has anything to say about it. </p><p>So Crowley holds out his hand. </p><p>“Come home with me?” </p>
<hr/><p>Later, after Crowley drives them back to his apartment, after he's taken the turns too fast with something like joy, after Aziraphale wrings out his nervousness and anticipation in the joining of their hands, after they have tumbled through Crowley’s front door, after hands have been buried into hair, fingers have peeled away clothes, after moans and pleas and limbs tangled together in sheets, Crowley lays in the circle of Aziraphale's arms and stares up at the ceiling. </p><p>He cannot wipe the smile from his face. </p><p>A glitch in the system? Something like that, something like happiness, which at this stage of his life may as well be a glitch in his own soul. Crowley could dwell on that, or - </p><p>He turns over and plants a line of kisses along Aziraphale's collarbone. Aziraphale presses into him, fingers running up and down Crowley’s arm, although when he reaches Crowley’s hand, he takes his time in examining, tracing the fine veins, each individual knuckle, the fingertips, void of the calluses they still bear on the outside, no matter how long it’s been since he picked up that bloody guitar. </p><p>"Do you still play music?" Aziraphale asks, quietly, as if he was listening, as if he could read Crowley’s thoughts. "On the outside, I mean.” </p><p>“I don’t know, do you still proselytize to your congregations?” They’ve never talked about it, about what Aziraphale does, on the outside. But it’s been apparent to Crowley since the first hour he’d known the man - he could practically smell the incense in his clothes even in Lower Tadfield. </p><p>“Is it that obvious?” Aziraphale is blushing, and if his hands weren’t occupied with Crowley he would be pulling on a collar that isn’t there. </p><p>“I’ve got sharp eyes. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” </p><p>“The same way you won’t talk about your music? Oh please, dear,” he says to Crowley’s exaggerated gape. “You couldn’t have had a less subtle distraction if you tried.” </p><p>“I can be distracting in a different way,” Crowley suggests. He could nibble at an ear, press his lips to Aziraphale’s throat, could - </p><p>“Oh no, we might as well,” Aziraphale continues, and is that a smirk he wears? A <em> chuckle </em> at Crowley’s thwarted wile? </p><p>He’s so far gone. This angel will be the death of him, Crowley knows.</p><p>“Very well,” he sighs dramatically. “Tell me the tale of Aziraphale the priest.”  </p><p>“Oh, I’m not a priest anymore,” Aziraphale says. “I… I left the church some time ago. I couldn’t -” The arms around Crowley tense. “I couldn’t stand there and tell people what I… what I wasn’t sure of myself.” This is far from the playful banter Crowley had intended, and he should pull back, employ some silly distraction, <em> kiss him, for chrissake</em>. But he’s curious, he cannot deny it, is constantly curious about this strange man with his hundred-year-old sense of fashion and faraway look and kind smile. </p><p>“A crisis of faith?” Crowley asks. Aziraphale nods, miserable, hiding his face between Crowley and the pillow. <em> Damn his curiosity to hell. </em> Crowley scrambles for something else - what if it was too much and Aziraphale flees again? He can’t, not before Crowley can - He has to make sure - </p><p>"Let me come visit you," Crowley mumbles suddenly into Aziraphale’s neck, his heart sputtering at how Aziraphale trembles against him. "Outside. Where are you?" </p><p>"London," Aziraphale replies, automatically, his head lifting just enough for Crowley to see a wisp of delight flash across his face. But then he looks scared, shakes his head, and turns his back to Crowley. "I don't… I don't know if -" </p><p>"I'm in London too," Crowley presses, winds his long arms around Aziraphale. It's too much, he knows. He's going too fast. He doesn't care. It’s a miracle he found Aziraphale again at all. The clock on the bedside table there is ticking away with stolen minutes within Lower Tadfield. And without?  </p><p>Death himself is standing just outside the door. He doesn’t have time to waste. </p><p>"Please?" he asks again. He isn’t above begging, if Aziraphale requires it, will force the moment to its crisis, like the old poem pounding in his brain. </p><p>"I'm not…" Aziraphale begins, and then stops, closes his eyes. "We're not the same, you and I." </p><p>Crowley lets the statement wash over him, examines the tire treads left in his heart, and decides he doesn’t care.  </p><p>"'Course we are," he says, instead of other things. “My eyes have almost all gone. I can still read a bit, but - well, you know how it is. I’ve got all kinds of cancers with names I can’t pronounce that the doctors all say are supposed to kill me in two months, but they said that a year ago. The - the shaking keeps getting worse.” He doesn’t mention the music, doesn’t mention why he won’t play. Aziraphale is smart, he can draw his own conclusions. </p><p>...Could Crowley still play? If he tried? Or is that gone too, gone like the rest of the past and buried in the fading notes of Crowley’s memory? </p><p>But Aziraphale doesn’t say anything to his declaration. Maybe his prognosis is a bit better, and he doesn’t want Crowley to feel worse? </p><p>“So where are you?” Crowley tries again. “London, yeah, but where?”  </p><p> “Downing’s Hospital,” Aziraphale mumbles. He presses back against Crowley’s chest, and Crowley wishes more than anything that he was actually here, that he was a resident, that he could <em> feel </em> the warmth he’s sure Aziraphale’s programming is emitting, that Aziraphale could feel him. </p><p>“Downing’s? I’m in assisted living in Mayfair. Twenty years ago I could have <em> walked </em> to you.” <em> I would now, </em> he doesn’t say. <em> If that were the only way. I would. It would take me three days, but I would</em>. <em> Wherever you are, I'll come to you. “</em>Let me come visit.” </p><p>“No, I don’t think… I don’t know.” Aziraphale clutches at the bedclothes with white knuckles, and Crowley presses a quiet kiss to the back of his neck. He melts into the touch, boneless, a puppet whose strings have been cut. “I don’t know what you’ll think of me, like that.” </p><p>“I’m dying, angel. Whatever you have going on, well, it’s equal to or lesser than, right?” Crowley is desperate. He <em> needs </em> to see Aziraphale on the outside, he <em> needs </em>to know that there is a person on the other end of the tangled knot of his own feelings, that Aziraphale isn’t just another dream Lower Tadfield is spitting out at him. </p><p>He doesn’t know how he deserves such a thing, after the life he’s led. </p><p>“Alright,” Aziraphale says, into the pillow. “If it… if it’s that important. You can come by. If you’d like.”</p><p>Crowley holds him until their five hours are up.  </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Act III</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Content warning: This chapter deals with hospitals, and common end-of-life illnesses</p><p>I promise it's also very, very soft and loving.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>Two days later, a flashy car pulls up in front of Downing’s Hospital. </p><p>A young man stumbles out of the passenger side, clearly relieved to be back on terra firma, and mumbles something incoherent about imposing speed limits on self driving cars. </p><p>An older man with dark glasses gets out of the driver's side, with a smile that's smug as anything and a spring in his step. But if one were to look just a bit closer, one might see a line in the set of his shoulders, some tension in his joints which might imply several things: anticipation, hope, dread, nervousness. </p><p>Adam, who hasn’t been Crowley’s aide for the last three years for nothing, allows him to take the lead, and follows him to the front desk. There, they get a set of badges and a sympathetic look from the receptionist. It’s that look that Crowley’s doctors and nurses give him when they flip through his chart and Crowley doesn't care for that look, not in the least. </p><p>“Fourth floor, room 11,” she says, shaking her head, sad eyes returning to her computer screen. Something clenches in his heart, and he staves it off. </p><p>He wants to see Aziraphale. </p><p>The walk through the hallways is as tense and depressing as a walk through a hospital usually is. There’s always a chemical smell trying to cover up the desperation, as if enough bleach can make the old young again, can make terminal illnesses apologize for their audacity in mucking up the residents of such a sterile, unblemished temple of healing. </p><p>It’s all bullshit, and Crowley knows it. No amount of cleaning products can fix the men and women being pushed to and fro in the halls, some with unfocused eyes, their brains entrenched in better days somewhere between fifty and eighty years ago, others frowning and furious with the certainty of understanding. There’s not a soap in the world can clean that. </p><p>Adam accompanies him as far as the door, where Crowley pauses, staring at the plastic number 11 stuck to it, as harsh and pristine as everything else in this fucking building. </p><p>“Go on then,” Adam says, after a minute or so. And why shouldn't Crowley do just that? There is the door. Aziraphale is behind it. Should he knock? Should he announce himself? But he wouldn’t have done either of those things in his youth <em> (nor would his palms be sweating this much) </em> . What is normal, in this sort of situation? He was never allowed to get this close before, and by the time he realized what was happening it was all too late. <em> Do I dare and do I dare? </em></p><p>
  <em> Fuck it.  </em>
</p><p>He turns the knob, and walks in. </p><hr/><p>Hospital rooms are all a slurry of sensations the moment they are stepped into, and Aziraphale’s room is no different. It’s the beeping Crowley hears first, the gentle beep of the heart monitor. Then there’s the smell of bleach and medicine, weaker than it was in the hall, tempered by some spray or another. The clack of knitting needles which belong to the attendant in the corner. He's young, like Adam, and glances up as Crowley walks in. The almost sweet smell of half-wilted flowers from a bouquet in the corner, a lunch that’s barely been touched sitting on a tray over the bed, a briney odor coming off a soup that's long gone cold. A person in the bed, half covered by a white blanket, wearing a beige, tartan robe. </p><p>Aziraphale’s face. </p><p>Crowley sees his eyes first - blue, just like they are in Lower Tadfield - and his hair, mostly white, with wisps of that pale blonde, and can't help but smile. <em> An angel, through and through.  </em></p><p>He does <em> not </em> want to see the tell-tale paralysis on the left side of Aziraphale’s face.  </p><p>“Told you I would come visit,” Crowley says, by way of greeting. “Man of my word, me. At least I am now. Thought I’d try it out before the end, old dog, new tricks, you know.” He’s babbling, he knows he is, but Aziraphale smiles out of the right side of his face. </p><p>“‘Lo… Crowley,” he manages, slowly, with effort and a flash of frustration across his face. Crowley could kick himself. </p><p><em> I don’t read much </em>, isn’t that what Aziraphale had said? Something like that, anyway. And now Crowley feels like a fool. He lives in a retirement home, for fuck’s sake, he can’t recognize someone hinting their way around the word “aphasia” when he hears it? </p><p>“Hello there, angel!” he says brightly. He can beat himself up later, wouldn’t have Aziraphale catching his frown and mistaking it for anything in the world. “How are things here on the outside? Your attendant ever leave you alone?" He throws his thumb in the young man's direction. "I know mine doesn’t, he’s waiting outside right now, probably has his ear pressed against the door. Good thing you don't have keyholes. We’re to have a conversation about boundaries later, him and I.” Aziraphale laughs, and Crowley breathes easier. He can do this, the talking for two - Lord knows he was filled with enough hot air to keep the crowds pleased for a few decades, way back when. </p><p>Aziraphale points to the media player on the side of the bed. Crowley expects it to be turned to some Masterpiece Theater or another, a modern Shakespeare. Only it’s outputting audio instead of video, and it's - </p><p>“Listening to <em> my music</em>, angel?” Crowley smirks and tries to tamp down the ridiculous fluttering in his heart. He’s not - he’s not some teenager staring out at his boyfriend in the crowd of five at a cafe, tripping over the same three chords every time he sees a smile. “Surely there’s something better you could be listening too. Spare us that damn greatest hits album, at least, the track order is <em> a sin </em> against creation.” </p><p>At last, the attendant in the corner ceases the ticking of his needles. </p><p>“It’s not his usual,” the young man supplies, setting his work on a side table. “Tuned to it a few weeks ago, been hooked on it ever since.” Aziraphale’s right eye goes wide, a deer in headlights, and Crowley understands immediately.</p><p>“A few weeks ago, hrm?” he says, slyly. “Right about the time I was flitting from server to server looking for a man who didn’t know how to properly keep an appointment?” Aziraphale stares off, sheepish and shy, with a small smile. Crowley rounds on the attendant. </p><p>“Warlock?” he says, reading the name off his badge. “What these modern parents come up with, I swear. You’re as bad as Adam, giving away all your charge’s secrets like that. Shall I send him away, angel?” Crowley asks, turning back to Aziraphale. He nods, slowly. </p><p>“Have fun, you two,” Warlock says, rising from his chair and heading towards the door. “Try not to break anything, you <em> just </em> had a visit from the doctor and you're a nightmare to try and wrangle down to testing.” Aziraphale’s face flushes red.</p><p>“Should we give Adam a twenty and send them off to the movies?” Crowley asks, as the door closes behind Warlock (<em>as if they’re kids, two classmates having a tussle on the bed with their younger siblings still in the house</em>). Aziraphale chuckles again, and Crowley thanks God or Satan or whoever he still believes in that the stroke (strokes?) haven’t robbed him of his laughter. </p><p>“Is this the part where I say I’m sorry about the stroke and you’re sorry about my cancer? Or can we just skip all that?” </p><p>“Skip,” says Aziraphale. </p><p>“You want to bring up a speech program?" Aziraphale shakes his head. "No, I’m sure you’ve tried those. Lucky for us Lower Tadfield bypasses all that.” Aziraphale pats the side of the bed next to him.</p><p>“Want to get right to it, eh angel? I thought there’d at least be some romance first, a kiss, a few sweet nothings in my ear.” </p><p>Aziraphale rolls his eyes at him, and pats the bed again, shifts a bit to the right to make more room. </p><p>“Well, alright, but you’d best let me know if I’m liable to break anything.” He sits down gingerly beside Aziraphale, can feel the heat coming off his body the way he never can in Lower Tadfield - not till he becomes a permanent resident, anyway. </p><p>“Oh you’re right, this <em> is </em>much nicer.” </p><p>Aziraphale raises his arm, but then pauses, unsure. Crowley finishes his thought and takes his hand, settling them in his own lap, his heart trembling, like the meniscus in a glass just before it overflows. </p><p>“It’s nice to see you this way,” he mumbles. He doesn’t thank Aziraphale for being real. That might be a bit too much. But he cannot mistake the tightening hold on his fingers, and when he looks up he sees a tear hovering in Aziraphale’s eye. </p><p>“Oh no, none of that now,” he says, wiping it away as it spills over. “You’ll get me crying and then the both of us will be a complete disaster, won’t we?” Aziraphale grins half-heartedly, nodding, and then points to Crowley’s glasses. </p><p>Crowley freezes. It’s clear what Aziraphale wants, but Crowley doesn’t take the glasses off unless he’s going to sleep - he can’t, not when he -  </p><p>Aziraphale draws back, saddened, apologetic, and <em> none of that, not today. </em> Crowley reaches up and yanks the glasses off his face. </p><p>The hospital room, Aziraphale’s face, everything, all goes dark and smudged. He tries to quiet the panic, the uptick in the pulse through his veins, the breathing that is suddenly too quick. </p><p>“Not - not as pretty as they are in Lower Tadfield, I’m afraid,” he says, trying to fill the silence with chatter. “Gone all milky, and just as good at doing their job as they are looking, I’ll tell you that much, can't see anything without the technology in those glasses, but-” </p><p>The sudden touch of a warm hand on his face quiets him instantly. </p><p>“Beautiful,” Aziraphale whispers, and Crowley is <em> not going to cry</em>, he <em> promised himself </em>- </p><p>It’s too late, and Aziraphale wipes away his tear, a mirror of the gesture Crowley performed not five minutes before. </p><p>“Look at us, a pair of sad old sods.” </p><p>Aziraphale pulls him gently, and Crowley lays down beside him on the bed, gently rearranging limbs until they are entwined together again. So many new sensations: the smell of Aziraphale’s shampoo, the gentle up-and-down of his breathing against Crowley’s cheek, all of them culminate in this overwhelming ache in Crowley’s chest that feels like belonging and home and a dozen other words he's too afraid to contemplate.</p><p>“Do you want me to read to you?” Crowley asks, scrambling for the stack of books on the table beside the bed before he can say something <em> ridiculous, </em> and Aziraphale’s eyes turn bright and delighted. </p><p>“Alright, alright, I know that face. What’ll it be?” </p><p>Aziraphale decides on <em>Pride</em> <em>and</em> <em>Prejudice</em>, because <em>of course</em> he does, and Crowley insists on doing all the voices properly: whining mother, arrogant teenage daughters, and all.</p><hr/><p>“Eh, marriage.” It is hours later; the book sits in Crowley's lap, his fingers marking the page, and Crowley shakes his head in response to a question Aziraphale asked with expressions and hand gestures.</p><p>“You make fun of it all you like as a kid, ‘oh I'll never get married,' 'oh everyone I know who's married is miserable,' all that stuff - and you tell yourself that you're happy - that you're free, and then…” Crowley passes a hand over his face. “And then one day you wake up and you reach out a hand into the empty place next to you where no one’s ever really been before and - well, you know, you start thinking there never <em> will </em>be… You start to wonder - At least I did. What could have been.” He shrugs. “Eh. But then by the time you realize, it’s all too late. All the chances are used up.”</p><p>Aziraphale takes his hand, and squeezes gently. It takes every ounce of Crowley's willpower to keep his heart from heaving itself into his mouth. After a minute or so, Aziraphale taps the fourth finger on Crowley's left hand. </p><p>“Why,” he says, with a face that looks like a question. </p><p>“Why didn’t I ever get married?” </p><p>Aziraphale nods. </p><p>“Wasn’t <em> allowed </em>,” he begins, darkly. Aziraphale waits, listening, inviting Crowley to continue. Should he? The therapist said he should talk about it, that he shouldn’t keep it all locked inside his heart, festering there, a wound gone septic. He exhales, slowly. </p><p>“No one I ever dated… they didn’t stick around too long. Well, when I was a kid, I didn’t want it, you know? Bought into that love’ em and leave’ em thing, ‘no commitment for me, thanks all the same.’” He pauses, collecting his thoughts. Azirapahle slowly brushes his knuckles with soft fingertips. “Got tired of it eventually. Started looking for something serious. Then it was always the same - a month or so of a few good times, conversation, and then just - poof. Gone. At first I thought it was just me, that everyone suddenly decided one day, no matter where we were at, that I just -” He swallows past the lump in his throat.  “That I wasn’t worth it, or proximity to the fame got them all strange or they didn’t want a relationship living on the road for half the year or… something like that. Honestly, at this point, I wish it was.” The words come slowly now, more carefully selected. There had been hopes, once. Dreams of a home, of someone there when he came home, of cuddling up in the winter months in front of a fire - maybe even dreams of children running through the halls, shouting and laughing. </p><p>“I found out - well. A few decades go by, and you’re just as lonely as you were when you started out, and you start to wonder how someone is doing. I looked up the first guy I dated after my first hit - now this was back in ‘93, ‘94? Who remembers anymore? He starred in the music video and - well. Anyway, he wrote back and we talked back and forth for a bit. It was going well enough, so then I ask him, you know, why it never worked out between us, what… what was it that I did wrong?” Crowley remembers the day, remembers the shaking in his hands (before they shook from everything else), already wrinkled, age spots just beginning to appear, his heart sick with anticipation as he waited for the response. </p><p>“And he tell me… he asks me if I know, and of course I <em> don’t </em> , or else why would I be <em> asking </em>, and…” He breathes. Aziraphle brushes his thumb against Crowley’s, over and over again, gentle comfort and encouragement. </p><p>“‘<em>Your</em> <em>manager</em>,’ he says. He tells me my manager - and the label paid him off, had him sign all these NDAs, made vague threats about never working in this town again, had him -” Crowley breathes. He’s talked through this part so many times with the therapist, it should be easy by now, it shouldn’t make him as angry as it did the first time. “He thought I knew. Thought I was a part of the whole thing. I - I <em>apologized</em>, because what else was I supposed to <em>do</em>? I’m sitting there, and I’m wondering: <em>was it like that every time?</em> And social media is sitting there like the apple in Eden, so <em>of course</em> I couldn’t resist! I asked the next one, and the next one. They all - they all said the same thing. Always - always the same. No one ever stuck around, because the label… because they made sure no one ever did.” His hands are shaking again, and Aziraphale nudges Crowley’s cheek with his nose, plants a kiss as soft as a butterfly’s wing. Crowley breathes in and out, feels the hands clutching his, sees a holy fury in Aziraphale’s eyes, all on <em>his </em>behalf and <em>What has he done to deserve this? What did he ever do to be worthy of this grace?</em></p><p>“So that was that.” His voice is <em> not </em> cracking. “I made money for those bastards for more than four decades, and they made sure I was miserable and lonely through <em> all of it </em> . I got a tidy sum from the settlement, let me tell you, but - it’s nothing. I’ve got nothing, and no one. Unless you count Adam.” He shouts that last bit in the direction of the door, just in case the boy is listening. “Although I’m not sure how much he counts. I <em> do </em>pay him, after all.” </p><p>Aziraphale makes a face, points to himself. </p><p>“And you,” Crowley breathes. “Still settling into that one. Still scared you might go running off on me again.” </p><p>Aziraphale looks guilty for a moment. “Not. Again,” he says, and Crowley doesn’t know what to do with the swell in his heart he feels afterwards. </p><p>“What about you?” he asks instead. <em> Distract, deflect, push it away </em>. “Ever do the holy thing, be fruitful and multiply? Or adopt. However you’d want it to work.” </p><p>Aziraphale shakes his head again. “Never... been... married.” </p><p>“Would you like to be?” Crowley says without thinking, without considering for an instant what the words might mean, and finding he doesn’t care once they’re out. </p><p>Aziraphale blinks at him a few times, goes red again, and looks away. <em> Fuck </em>. </p><p>“Forget it, angel, I didn’t think - I’m sorry-” </p><p>But Aziraphale nods, once, then twice, and looks at him again with something like adoration. It’s enough to make Crowley wants to kiss him. </p><p>So he does. </p><p>“You’re sure, angel?” he asks when they separate. “It doesn’t have to - it can just be for fun, like Lower Tadfield, one last hurrah - it -it doesn’t have to mean anything -” </p><p>Aziraphale puts his hand to the side of Crowley’s face, forcing Crowley to look him in the eye. “Means something,” he says, with conviction that shakes Crowley right down the very bottom of his miserable, wasted soul. </p><p>Crowley picks out the rings the next day. </p><hr/><p>Their ceremony is brief, perfunctory, a few words said back and forth to the legal team on hand in the hospital for such things and then the<em> I dos. </em> Crowley gets the sense that this sort of thing isn’t uncommon, and why should it be? Who in this hospital has time for a lengthy courtship, an extended engagement? <em> I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. </em> Death will not wait, so why should they? Why not wring every last drop of joy from these final few days, hear those mermaids singing while they can?</p><p>Crowley moves Aziraphale into his own facility. He has buckets of money left over from The Time Before, and he sees no reason it shouldn’t go towards Aziraphale’s care. Who else would he leave it to, who else would he save it for? In the days leading up to Aziraphale’s transfer, Crowley fills out so many documents and cheques that his right hand cramps up for two days and the other one shakes worse than anything. But then it’s all dealt with, and Aziraphale is here. (In separate beds, because the doctors <em> insisted </em>, but here, all the same.) He can smile at Crowley in the morning (he is always the first to wake, he always greets Crowley with a perfect smile out of the right side of his face). Then, in the afternoons, after the both of them have been exhausted by the poking and prodding of doctors and the gentle, condescending encouragement of therapists, after the taking of toast and tea, Crowley can curl up beside him and read to him. Aziraphale is often tired and more than a little cranky, especially after a meeting with the speech therapist, and wants nothing but to drift off to sleep against Crowley’s shoulder, listening to the rumble of his voice. The weeks pass by in this gentle, soft haze, punctuated by one very important five hours each Friday evening. </p><p>They never miss their chance to go to Lower Tadfield. </p><p>There they can attend gallery exhibitions, plays, performances; they sit in the back of the bookshop and get hilariously drunk over wine they can't quite taste while arguing over books and poets and philosophy, and when that’s done they move their intoxication sliders all the way to 0 and dance to old music on the record player, until Aziraphale crowds Crowley against one of the bookshelves and kisses him in a way Crowley has never been kissed before, the way it is in the movies and the plays <em>(the way he almost didn’t believe was real)</em>. </p><p>Crowley is in love.</p><p>And <em> no one</em>, no agent or manager or record label, will tell Aziraphale to go away, will pay him a hefty sum to leave Crowley alone forever. </p><p>The only way to separate them is the end.</p><p>It's funny, Crowley thinks sometimes, curled around Aziraphale in his big and luxurious bed at his flat in Lower Tadfield, or staring up at the ceiling on the outside as he listens to Aziraphale’s gentle snoring, that it's only here, at the end, he's found this. </p><p>And it will not be his to keep. </p><p>
  <em> Aziraphale doesn't want to stay. </em>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Finale</h2></a>
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<p>“What do you want to do, afterwards?” he asks Aziraphale one evening in Lower Tadfield. They're seated in a booth in a charming little cafe, one of those that strings Christmas lights around all year and only hires the worst sort of folksy musicians for entertainment and insists that no part of the decor should match in the slightest. Aziraphale is tucking into a triple chocolate mousse cake and making those indecent little sounds that tell Crowley he's <em> particularly </em> enjoying himself <em> (those noises should be illegal in polite company) </em> while Crowley clinks a metal spoon against the side of his coffee mug, stirring in the sugar. “We can go wherever we want. Lower Tadfield, San Junipero. We can even do that little honeymooners package, see where the best fit is, before we make a decision.” </p>
<p>“What are you talking about, darling?” Aziraphale replies, absently. His mind is on the cake, Crowley knows, and he shakes his head affectionately. </p>
<p>“After, you know.” Crowley waves his hands in a complicated gesture. He could probably find a way to be a bit less subtle, but there’s a drop of chocolate at the corner of Aziraphale’s mouth, distracting in its invitation to be kissed away. “After.” He obviously isn't presently capable of making himself any clearer. </p>
<p>“Oh!” Finally understanding dawns, and Aziraphale hastily wipes his mouth with his napkin. The chocolate vanishes. “Oh, my dear, I’m terribly sorry.” Aziraphale looks suddenly mortified, eyes flitting this way and that, to the door, the lights above, everywhere but Crowley. <em>Does he want to spend eternity somewhere strange? </em>Crowley wonders: why else would he have such a hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar face?<em> Maybe France or Australia or something?</em> Something <em>embarrassing? </em>“We really should have discussed this earlier, before… well." Aziraphale twists the ring on his left hand. "Suppose it’s too late now. Better late than never, isn’t that right?”</p>
<p>“For what?” This is not about somewhere unusual, Crowley realizes. This is something else entirely, something decidedly Not Good. He hasn't heard Aziraphale babble like this since that evening in the park, when they finally found each other again, when Aziraphale had been scared and aching and Crowley had been just the same. Now, here in this stupid cafe with its out of tune singer and her barely passable version of <em> Satellite of Love</em>, there is ice trickling down his spine, pooling in his lower back, and he shivers when Aziraphale clears his throat. </p>
<p>“Dear, I don’t know <em> quite </em> how to tell you this, I really should have planned-”</p>
<p>“Spit it out, angel!”</p>
<p>Aziraphale reaches over, stills Crowley’s hand from where it’s been nervously drumming on the tabletop. “Crowley, I - I’m… That is to say... I’m not planning on <em> staying </em>” </p>
<p>“Oh, that’s <em> very funny </em> .” It’s not funny. It’s not funny <em> at all</em>, why would Aziraphale - </p>
<p>“It’s not a joke!” Aziraphale shifts uncomfortably, and he still won’t look up. “It’s… I made a promise.” </p>
<p>“Aziraphale, what are you talking about?” Crowley barks, louder than he intends, fear oozing into the corners of his voice. A few diners look his way, and his volume lowers to a hiss. “Of course you’re staying, we - we must have -” </p>
<p>“No. No we didn’t. I never told you why I stopped being - why I - left. My earlier profession, I mean. And I promised - well, I left the church because… That was doctrine, San Junipero, and all the ones that came after… We were supposed to say, you know, that this place was… was a false idol, wasn’t heaven, not really. The Church maintains it would - it would trap people. And I <em> preached </em> that, Crowley, I told people <em> not </em>to come here, to just...” </p>
<p>“You didn’t command them!” Crowley cries. “Free will, that’s what a choice is, to stay or not, don't act like they would just follow you blindly, like sheep or -or-”</p>
<p>“I don’t-”</p>
<p>“It’s like the stupid story or parable or whatever it is. Bloke who’s stuck in the ocean and won’t accept help from anyone because he thinks <em> God </em> is going to save him. This is -” He cannot keep his voice from cracking. “<em>This </em> could be heaven, Aziraphale.  For you, for <em> us</em>.” </p>
<p>“All those people!” Aziraphale almost shouts. “I sent all those people to - to -  I don’t even know what! Heaven? Maybe! But - maybe nothing, maybe there <em> is nothing </em>-”</p>
<p>“There’s something right here!” Crowley jams his finger into the tabletop. “You don’t have to abandon all this as some kind of - of penance!” <em> You don’t have to abandon me.  </em></p>
<p>“I made a <em> vow</em>, Crowley, you can’t just expect me to-”</p>
<p>“Oh, a <em> vow. </em> ” He pulls the w, turns the word rotten and ugly. “How about the vows <em> we </em> made? Thought those were supposed to mean something, but hey, I can't remember what I had for breakfast, so who <em> knows </em> if we can trust any of <em> my </em> memories.” <em> Go on. Try to tell me again that it’s not real. I won’t believe it.  </em></p>
<p>“I <em> told </em> you to leave me alone! I <em> tried </em>to stay away, I-”</p>
<p>“Did you? Or did you let me chase you just long enough to know that it mattered? That <em> you </em> mattered? Jesus Christ, Aziraphale, what do you mean <em> you’re not staying? </em>” </p>
<p>“You’re getting very worked up about -”</p>
<p>“Getting <em> worked up? </em> You’re telling me that we have - what, a month? Two?” Crowley is flailing, trying to remember timelines and prognoses, the memories of words spoken by very understanding people in white coats swimming around in his head, no, not swimming, <em> drowning</em>, sinking under where he can't reach them. </p>
<p>“The doctors are wrong, you’re <em> always </em> telling me how they’re <em> always wrong- </em>”</p>
<p>“But <em> one </em>day they won’t be! And I’ll go first, or you will...” </p>
<p>“And it’ll be just like how people died for centuries.”</p>
<p>“But it doesn’t <em> have </em> to be!”</p>
<p>“Crowley, we’re talking in circles and I won’t do this anymore. I’m not staying. I made my choice. Now we can continue having a lovely evening or -”</p>
<p>“Never mind.” Crowley is scrambling out of their booth. “I don’t - I’ll see you on the outside.” </p>
<p>He logs off immediately, gets up before Aziraphale can follow him back into consciousness. There are a few other residents and their attendants here, but he could give a shit about what they think as he stands up on knees that scream in protest and rounds on Warlock, knitting in the corner of the dayroom. </p>
<p>“How long did you know?” he shouts at Warlock, reaching him in a few strides and grabbing him by his collar. He’s still got a few inches on the boy, stooped and creaky though he is, he <em> can still be intimidating if he wants to be</em>. “Did you <em> know </em> ? Did he tell you? Wasn’t there a form I was supposed to sign?” There must have been a form, what, all those signatures, and none of them told him the most <em> important bit of information</em>? Warlock is thrown for a moment, alarmed by the outburst, and Adam, Crowley's fucking shadow, gently inches towards them. </p>
<p>“You stay out of this!” he roars at Adam. <em> A crazy, mean old man, screaming at your nurses to let you go, or furious that people who have been dead for decades won't visit, that’s what you look like, that’s exactly what you are. </em>“Well?” he asks Warlock again. </p>
<p>“Yeah,” Warlock mumbles. “I know what his end of life plan is. Of-of course I do.” </p>
<p>“What about you?” he growls, turning back to Adam. “Am I the only one not in on the joke?” </p>
<p>“I don’t even know what you’re <em> talking about </em> ,” Adam says, slow and even. “Why don’t we all just sit down for a moment and we can discuss it.” It’s not a request. Is anything a request? Is he <em> allowed </em> to be angry, or is that only for the young? Do his feelings always have to be managed and diminished and <em> discussed? </em></p>
<p>“I don’t <em> want </em> to sit down.” Crowley lets go of Warlock’s shirt, and basks in the look of relief in the kid’s face before even a hint of contrition can set in. “I’m going for a walk.” He leaves without another word. Adam will follow him, because Adam always follows him, that’s what Adam is <em> hired </em> to do, but Crowley can at least pretend, can pretend he’s capable enough, that he has enough agency to get out when he’s upset, to sort out his own shit without Adam or the therapist “guiding his healing process” or whatever the hell they call all those probing questions. </p>
<p>He ignores the stuttered protests from the nurse at the security desk -if he was young again he would throw the man a look that would shut him up in a second, make no mistake - and slams through both the double doors into the courtyard. </p>
<p>The night air is cool against his skin. He drinks in deep breaths of it, wishes he could run, wishes he could do so many things he's no longer capable of. </p>
<p>It <em>does</em> feel good, though, being outside after dark, a bit like sneaking out, even. (He can hear Adam treading softly behind him, almost silent, and feels a stab of gratitude that Adam is smart enough to play along.) When was the last time? He can't remember. What a surprise. Crowley steps down towards the paths winding through the gardens in the courtyard, the stones harsh against the soles of his slippers. He used to work out here, in the sunshine, when he was still well enough. Couldn’t do much of the bending down and weeding - too old for that, even when he first moved in - but he was able to do a bit of pruning here and there. It was peaceful, in a way, shaping the rose vines and the hedges, like sculpting, molding the plants to their potential, the white and red blossoms against dark green leaves. He remembers the day they laid the new gravel, white limestone, how it shone against the black earth beside it. He could still see it then, without the glasses. </p>
<p>It’s all the same shade of gray, now. </p>
<p>He hoped the night air, the ground, the quiet of the outside would calm his fears a bit, help him to craft those magic words that will make Aziraphale see his side, the spell that will instantly smooth over their fight and the cause of it.</p>
<p>But the words don’t come. Do they even exist? <em> Of course not. They never have. There is no conjuration, no fancy bit of Latin that makes it like it never happened, it’s all hard work and compromise, but you do it for love, you're supposed to do it for love, remember the stories?  </em></p>
<p>That should be the end of it, right? But instead, his anxieties swirl around him, building in breadth and momentum with each turn about the courtyard. He’s creating his own whirlpool, the world's very own geriatric black hole of despair, until finally he collapses onto a bench, shoves the glasses back on his head and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, as if <em> that </em> will stop the tears from coming, and he screams.  </p>
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<p>Later, after he’s allowed Adam to take him back inside, back to bed, after he’s turned out the light and tossed and turned at least fifty times, <em> time to turn back and descend the stair, </em> the door opens. </p>
<p>It’s Warlock and Aziraphale, back from the latter's jaunt in Lower Tadfield. </p>
<p>He never followed Crowley out, after all. <em> Just stayed his full five hours, then, didn't he? </em></p>
<p>Crowley lets his limbs go limp, evens out his breathing, pretends he’s asleep, like he’s been asleep for <em> hours </em> and his brain hasn’t been banging from one end of his skull to the next like a cornered animal. Warlock helps Aziraphale into bed, they exchange a few murmured words, and then the boy leaves them, throws the room into darkness with a final flick of the switch on the wall. </p>
<p>Crowley hears Aziraphale shuffle around in the bed, trying to get comfortable, and his heart squeezes in his chest with the need to comfort, to smooth it all over, but the rage burns brighter. <em>Trading us for a promise?</em> <em>A promise you made to who? To God? Who knows if anyone’s even listening? </em>He isn’t speaking out loud, he knows he can’t be, but Aziraphale stops settling the blankets all the same. </p>
<p>“Crow...ley?” Crowley doesn't turn over, doesn't answer. He wants to be furious for just one night before he fixes it, he wants to turn to the wall and fume. </p>
<p>Tomorrow. Tomorrow they will sort this out, he’ll - he’ll convince Aziraphale to go with him, somehow. He has to. </p>
<p>Tomorrow. </p>
<p>"...'Night," Aziraphale mumbles.</p>
<p> Crowley doesn’t reply. </p>
<p><em> Tomorrow</em>. </p>
<hr/>
<p>But the next morning, Crowley is shouted awake by the blare of machines. Not his, there’s no shrieking around his own ears but it’s coming from - </p>
<p>Aziraphale. </p>
<p>His first thought, <em> it's too soon it's not fair it's - </em>is crushed by the next: a blind sort of panic that sets him scrambling out of his bed as quickly as his ancient limbs will go, calling for a nurse, for someone to - </p>
<p>Please not now. Not now. It’s too soon. It will always be too soon. </p>
<p>
  <em> There will never be enough time.  </em>
</p>
<p>A torrent of people suddenly burst into his room, doctors and nurses, Adam and Warlock, and <em> they’re all blocking his view of Aziraphale</em>. None of them pay him any mind as he struggles to push through the crush to get a glimpse of him, not until Adam puts both hands on his shoulders and tells him to stop shouting, that everyone is doing the best they can. Has he been shouting? His throat feels raw and his chest feels fluttery and strange. Adam guides him back to his bed, where he sits on the edge and watches the wall of bodies surrounding Aziraphale and feels sick and helpless and <em> old </em> . Adam is kneeling beside him, asking questions, but Crowley can’t focus on the words, how <em> can </em> he be expected to answer anything when <em> he doesn’t know what’s happening to Aziraphale. </em> He thinks about Aziraphale calling his name the night before, about his slow and painful goodnight. What if that was it, what if that was the last chance he had to speak with him and <em> he gave it up because of a stupid fight about - </em></p>
<p>“Crowley?” Adam is snapping his fingers in front of his face. “Crowley, I really need you to calm down now, if you can.” It’s the quiver in the kid’s voice that does it, the not-quite-wobble that Crowley’s never heard before. <em> Like he’s scared too. </em>“Your heart rate is too high and your breathing is too fast. Do you think you can slow it down for me?” </p>
<p>“But Aziraphale -”</p>
<p>“Aziraphale is stable,” Adam continues, in that voice that isn’t quite his own. It’s too practiced, too learned; it sounds like someone else is speaking through his attendant, like a teacher or a professor, and he can imagine a prim woman in scrubs in front of a class: “<em>Now if your patient is about to have a panic attack because their spouse might be dying, you should speak to them in a slow, soothing voice.”  </em></p>
<p>“That’s it,” Adam tells him. “You’re doing fine.” He is <em> not </em> doing fine. There are still doctors crowded around Aziraphale’s bed, but they are moving - not slowly, but purposefully. There is no panicked haste in their movements, and yet no hint that there’s no longer a <em> reason </em> for them to care at all. </p>
<p>“He’s stable,” Adam says again. “You can see him in a minute.” </p>
<p>A minute? Half a second is too long, but he will wait. He will <em> do as he is told</em>. </p>
<p>The doctors start to filter out first, whatever job they’ve done apparently at an end. A nurse steps over to explain to Crowley what’s happened, and he tries to listen, he <em> really </em> does, but he keeps looking around her to catch glimpses of Aziraphale’s face. Adam is taking notes, right? Warlock has already heard the whole of it. Crowley doesn’t need to understand what’s happening. No one expects him to, anyway. </p>
<p>Finally, it’s just the two of them, Warlock, and Adam. </p>
<p>“Can we -” Adam huffs. “Can we get you two anything?” </p>
<p>“Just leave us alone. Please.” Adam gives him that <em> look </em>, the sympathetic one Crowley hates, but somehow coming from Adam it’s not so bad. It’s almost a comfort. </p>
<p>Crowley sinks into the chair beside the bed once Adam closes the door behind him. Aziraphale follows the motion with his eyes, but Crowley cannot look at his face, at the oxygen tubes that weren’t there last night. He concentrates for a while on the gentle rise and fall of the blanket, those minute changes that let him know that Azirapahle is still here, is still breathing. </p>
<p>“How are you feeling, angel?” he asks after a bit. Aziraphale gives him a pointed look. <em> How do you think, darling? </em> Crowley can almost hear it. It’s almost enough to make him smile.  </p>
<p>“I’m - I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t mean - well, I <em> did </em> mean some of it but I didn’t - I’m just -” Aziraphale quiets him with a gentle press of his hand. Crowley looks up at him. </p>
<p>“L-love… you,” Aziraphale says, slowly and deliberately. It is the first time they have ever said the word to each other, though there have been enough looks and actions to convey the sentiment over and over again. Crowley can’t stop the tears, not this time, and he doesn’t try. “‘M sorry.” </p>
<p>“Aziraphale, don't - don't be sorry, it's alright, love - I -” Crowley tries to swallow around the lump in his throat, the heart that’s lodged there, choking him with emotions he cannot possibly put into words. “I love you too.” He has never said it out loud like this, where it meant more to him than just words to fill the space, where it meant things like <em> ‘I'll be there for all the good moments and the bad ones in between,’ </em> and <em> ‘this is forever and ever, isn’t it?’ </em> He’s never said it like <em> ‘I'll be with you at the end.' </em></p>
<p>How is he supposed to go on? </p>
<p>“Do you need anything?” Crowley asks, because asking the rest of it is too much. Let him take care of Aziraphale however he can, let him <em> show </em>- </p>
<p>Aziraphale points to the guitar hanging up in the corner, the same one one that Adam has indicated, or glanced at, on the countless occasions he’s asked Crowley to start playing again. </p>
<p>“Will you…” Aziraphale’s breathing is so laboured; each and every sip of air that passes his lips is stolen, robbed from Death himself. <em> Just outside the door now, see that shadow of that bony hand? </em> How can Crowley say no? </p>
<p>“Of - of course, angel. Whatever you want.” He rises, walks over to the instrument, lifts it from the wall with fingers that shake from more than just his illness. How long has it been? When he sits back beside Aziraphale, begins to remedy the woeful tuning, the guitar fits easily into his grip, settles atop his thigh and against his side like it’s been there forever.  </p>
<p>With the tuning corrected, Crowley’s hands pass reverently over the strings, and they emit that warm, open sound that every musician knows is a prelude to something new. There is a painful twinge of arthritis in Crowley’s knuckles he ignores: Aziraphale wants to hear music, and so he will. </p>
<p>Crowley begins to play. It’s a soft and slow song off the first album he ever put out, the one he composed in his childhood bedroom with posters of David Bowie and Lou Reed hanging on walls poorly painted black. He remembers the chords - the muscles in his fingers remember the chords - even if the strumming is a bit off, he can be forgiven for that, surely? If he smudges a note or two, if his scratched throat isn’t up to singing at the standard he set at twenty-eight. That’s alright. He doesn’t - he doesn’t have to be perfect. Not for Aziraphale. </p>
<p>
  <em> Not for his husband.  </em>
</p>
<p>He misses another note as the word trips across his brain. Husband. <em> Until death do us part</em>, that’s the line, right? What he would have promised Aziraphale, if they had done it properly? If they had met in some other life, some other time, where he could have spent a lifetime beside him, instead of these last few steps? There would have been roses, and sunshine. Crowley would have been a horror of a groom, desperate that everything be perfect, and there would be Aziraphale, bright and shining as the sun in the summertime, telling him it would be alright, that whatever went wrong, it wouldn’t matter. That they were in love, and that’s what counted, and all that ridiculous drivel he scoffed at when he was young and alone and sad and scared would fall by the wayside, would dissolve in the joy that was a lifetime with Aziraphale. </p>
<p>Now they’re just two old men, holding on to whatever they have left by the ragged edges of their fingernails. </p>
<hr/>
<p>Aziraphale does not improve as the week goes on - was he expected to? Didn’t they know it would always come to this? - and now, more than ever, Crowley knows their time, meager as it was, is almost up. He sees Aziraphale's morphine drip going up and up and up. He counts the seconds in the afternoons they spend together; in the night he counts the breaths coming from Aziraphale’s bed until he falls into his own fitful sleep. Doctors throw numbers like “three weeks” and “maybe a few days” at him, and he calculates how many hours that is, averages it out; there are reams and reams of numbers piling up in his head and each sum makes less sense than the last. When they go to Lower Tadfield that Friday evening they do not leave the confines of Crowley’s bed, making love with the sort of desperation reserved for Armageddon, the apocalypse, <em> if you had one night left to spend on earth, how would you spend it? </em></p>
<p><em> Like this, </em> Crowley thinks, with Aziraphale above him, his face glowing in the moonlight that seeps through the curtains. <em> Like this. </em> </p>
<p>“Shh, love,” Aziraphale soothes, wiping away tears from the corners of Crowley’s eyes (traitorous things). “It’s alright, it’ll be alright.” <em> It won’t</em>, Crowley wants to say. <em> I’m staying and you’re going, how is any of this alright? </em> But their time is running out, water cupped in shaking hands, and why would he start the argument again when he could be doing <em> this</em>. </p>
<p>There’s a few grains of sand still left in the hourglass, time still, though he’s racing against it, though there are volumes of numbers stacked against them. Time to sort it all out, time to convince Aziraphale that the past doesn’t matter, now that they’re together, they’re on their own side, they can fix it, time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. And if not, well, then Crowley won’t stay either. Even if there’s a Hell on the other side, even if it’s just a long dark fall forever, or if it’s nothing at all. He won’t go without Aziraphale, he just needs <em> time</em>. </p>
<p>He doesn't expect to go first. </p>
<hr/>
<p>Death appears in many forms. </p>
<p>Sometimes he arrives with a phone call in the middle of the night, creeps in through the heavy breathing and sobs on the other end of the line. Other times he comes in with hushed voices outside of a hospital room, with a doctor's solemn face, a shake of his head, a wail of despair. But the worst, some might say, is when he shows up unannounced, uncalled for, with <em> “that’s impossible, I </em> just <em> saw her” </em> and <em> “what a shock, what a pity.”  </em></p>
<p>It is in this last way that Death comes for Crowley. </p>
<hr/>
<p>One morning he wakes up, and he’s in Lower Tadfield. </p>
<p>It takes him a moment or two to understand what’s happened, why the ceiling looks like the sky on a clear summer’s day, why his whole body doesn’t ache with the pain of age the way it does every morning. <em> He knows he is forgetting something.  </em></p>
<p>Oh.</p>
<p>He isn’t a trial case any longer. No more five hours on a Friday evening. </p>
<p>He’s a resident now.  </p>
<p>Such a simple phrase to describe it. He certainly doesn’t <em> feel </em> dead - though how being dead should feel, he can’t quite say. Crowley pats himself down - he feels solid enough. Not a ghost. Just - inside Lower Tadfield. Permanently.  </p>
<p><em> Forever</em>. </p>
<p>He breathes out the word slowly, tasting it, trying out its weight on his tongue. No more pain. Not <em> ever </em> again. He will never be thrown back into a body that feels foreign, never look into a mirror and see an old, old man staring back at him and wonder where his own face went. It’s just - over. All of it. </p>
<p>He thought it might feel more… More? </p>
<p>
  <em> He’s forgetting something.  </em>
</p>
<p>Being a resident, that’s at least something he <em> can </em> sense. </p>
<p>It’s different and the same from the very first time he arrived. He still feels new, born again, there on that hillside. But it was never like <em> this</em>. He can <em> feel </em> the grass springing beneath his feet, he can smell the sea on the wind, hear the birds in the trees. It feels <em> real</em>, so real he can’t believe he ever doubted staying. </p>
<p>Aziraphale. </p>
<p>
  <em> AZIRAPHALE!  </em>
</p>
<p>His temporary peace is shattered instantly, replaced by a blind, sheer panic that pulls his legs out from under him, and he crumples to the grass. </p>
<p>
  <em> What if something happened? What if Aziraphale doesn’t come, what if he’s gone and gone and gone, what if he doesn’t want to see Crowley, what if -  </em>
</p>
<p>So many what-ifs, and would have, could have, should haves. </p>
<p>There is paradise around him, and Crowley cannot enjoy any of it. He doesn’t know how long he sits there, spiralling outward. He watches the residents of Lower Tadfield move below him without really seeing them. Is this normal? This crash into paradise? This terror of being here for eternity, of being on one side of a closed door while the people (person) you love is out there on the other? What day is it? How long will he have to wait for Aziraphale’s five hours, <em> what if Aziraphale doesn’t make it to Friday?  </em></p>
<p>But then a shadow falls across him. </p>
<p>“Crowley?” </p>
<p>He knows that voice, but - it’s not Friday, it can’t be, it’s too early for -</p>
<p>“Crowley, are you alright?”</p>
<p>It’s… </p>
<p>“Angel?” His voice is soft and scared, and when Aziraphale kneels beside him and folds Crowley into his arms, he thinks he might be hallucinating, dreaming up an Aziraphale. But how could a dream feel like home? How would it know the timbre of his voice, the perfect pattern of that ridiculous bowtie, the way Crowley’s face fits so precisely in the cradle of his neck and shoulder? A dream wouldn’t know that, <em>would it?</em></p>
<p>“Oh, thank goodness - they told me I couldn’t go right in, there’s a waiting period, you see, and it was all day fighting with them when I can’t just <em> say what I mean </em> and - my dear, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I took so long, I would have thrown a plate at the last legal team if I had the strength for it.” With that, Crowley knows.  </p>
<p>This isn’t a dream. </p>
<p>Aziraphale is here. </p>
<p>“It’s you,” Crowley mumbles, pulling back to see Aziraphale’s amused smile. </p>
<p>“Of course it’s me, love, who else -” </p>
<p>Crowley silences him with a kiss, slides his hands into that soft blonde hair, runs his tongue along Aziraphale’s bottom lip until he opens to him, and then Aziraphale is kissing him back, his breath hitching in his throat in a way that sends a shock right through Crowley’s entire body. The first kiss ends and another begins - where does one body end and one begin? Can he merge their codes together, can he carve out a space for himself and live safe inside Aziraphale’s heart? </p>
<p>“Dear, you’re trembling,” Aziraphale says against his lips, and Crowley <em> is, </em> he’s trembling with relief, running his hands everywhere he can reach, he can <em> smell </em>Aziraphale, can feel the warmth of his body and the heart that artificially beats beneath it. </p>
<p>“It’s so real,” Crowley says, with hands braced against Aziraphale’s chest. “It feels so real, it feels <em> just like it does </em> on the outside.” </p>
<p>“I know, I know,” Aziaphale mumbles, but he <em> can’t </em> know, not <em> yet </em> at least, he’s still - “Oh, <em> Crowley </em>you can’t imagine how it is to see you safe here - it was awful and I was…” Aziraphale cannot continue, clings to Crowley, two survivors adrift at sea. </p>
<p>“Tell me. I’m okay, see? You can tell me what happened.”  </p>
<p>“You woke up and - I heard you gasping, like you couldn’t - you couldn’t breathe, and I was there but I couldn’t go to you, I just had to listen to the machines and the doctors and -” Aziraphale is shaking, and Crowley plants kisses all over his face, his lips, his cheeks, his nose, each one saying <em> I’m okay, I’m here, it’s alright, I love you. </em> </p>
<p>“And they uploaded you but - you were <em> gone,</em>” Aziraphale continues.  “You were just <em> gone </em>and I was so - scared. Crowley, I never thought…I always thought I knew what it would feel like but… I didn’t know anything at all, did I?” </p>
<p>“It’s too early,” Crowley realizes again. “Aziraphale, how did you get here? It’s too early.” A fragile bud of hope is blooming in his chest and he can’t stop it, it’s filling every vein and pore and he -</p>
<p>“I think… perhaps… I might be forgiven, for going back on a certain promise.” Aziraphale says, so gently, looking up through those heavy lashes of his that drive Crowley mad. </p>
<p>“You’re…” Crowley can’t say it. Wishes that sound like home are fluttering in his chest, and if he voices them and it’s not what Aziraphale meant at all then - </p>
<p>“Darling, <em> one </em> day without you was torture. I -” He purses his lips and steels his eyes. “And I decided after you were… after you were gone that… whatever comes after, I just… I don’t… I don’t want to be there without you. You did enough chasing after me. It was… it was time for me to find you.” </p>
<p>Aziraphale’s eyes are shining, and Crowley kisses him again. </p>
<p>“‘C’mon, angel.” Crowley rises to his feet and holds out his hand to help Aziraphale. “Let’s go see what forever has to offer us.” </p>
<p>Aziraphale takes his hand without hesitation.</p>
<p>“Where are we going?”</p>
<p>“Follow me.” </p>
<p>He pulls Aziraphale along with him, his strides growing longer and longer, until he’s running, running with the wind in his hair and a warm hand in his. They run together all the way down that hill, because who is anyone to tell them not to?  </p>
<p>Crowley lives here, doesn’t he? He squeezes the hand in his, and there is a laugh welling up inside him he sees no reason not to let ring free. </p>
<p>He lives here. </p>
<p>And so does Aziraphale. </p>
<hr/>
<p>Crowley and Aziraphale move out of the city. It’s more crowded every day, especially on Fridays, and “one wants a little privacy,” as Aziraphale so primly puts it.There is enough charming little countryside to suit them, time periods aplenty, but they pick 2020, just for now, and move into a small, whitewashed cottage set back from the road, secluded by a copse of trees and with enough room for all the books Aziraphale might ever wish to keep.  </p>
<p>Crowley has his own side of their sitting room, of course. There’s a guitar on the wall, and sometimes he takes it down in the evenings and sings softly while Aziraphale reads (it happens more often than not). He’s been keeping up the garden, too, and he doesn’t take for granted each bend in his knees, each twist of his wrist to work a stubborn weed out of the ground. </p>
<p>There are soft kisses (”Love you, angel”), grumpy mornings (“I've made you some coffee, dear, just how you like it”), passionate afternoons (“Yes <em> yes please like that") </em> . There are small squabbles that aren’t really squabbles at all over who will do the dishes (“We can just miracle them clean!” “Well, yes, but I'd always know the stains were there”), how clean to keep the coffee table (“I'm <em> reading </em> that!” “Same way you're <em> reading </em> the <em> twenty others </em> you've got stacked here?”), who is hogging the blankets in the night (“Come closer, love, you're always so cold”). There are evenings out that end early in the desire to get home (“Crowley, either we get home in the next five seconds or I'll get us both flagged for indecency, I swear-”), nights that last until dawn breaks through the trees and finds them on a blanket in the park, sharing the last drop from a bottle of wine (“Joyce must have been the most miserable dinner guest in all of history.” “Don't discount Henry James, darling.”). There is dancing in the kitchen (“You're a hopeless romantic, angel.” “Just trying to keep up with you.”), and laughing over burned toast ("Why do the settings go up to ten if it burns at five?!”) and tears wiped away (“I'm sorry, I'm <em> sorry</em>.” “There's nothing to be sorry for. It's okay. I love you. It's okay.”). </p>
<p>There is love. </p>
<p>There is <em>love. </em></p>
<p>
  <em> There is love.  </em>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>How long will it last?</p>
<p>Well. </p>
<p>How much time do we have?</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And that's the final word. </p>
<p>Thank you so much to everyone who gave your time to this story. I've lost several people very close to me to illness over the past few years, and writing this helped bring me a lot of closure, helped me examine the feelings and sensations I've been going through, and hold them up to the light. I was able to see things for their beauty instead of their pain, even though it wasn't always easy. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Come over and talk to me on Tumblr  <a href="https://soft-october-night.tumblr.com/">@soft-october-night</a> if you'd like to share your thoughts, or if you'd like to just scream. Thank you so much again to my lovely beta, <a href="https://fremulon.tumblr.com/">fremulon</a> and the incomprable <a href="https://khiroptera.tumblr.com/">khiroptera,</a> whose art is not only beautiful and soft, but made me cry the first time I saw it.<br/>&lt;3</p>
        </blockquote><div class="children module" id="children">
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